On Wisconsin

In the wake of the Ash Wednesday ambush on working families, Wisconsin progressives fight on, with a large rally today bringing in farmers from the western part of the state who see the link between teacher's unions and rural economic health. Energized activists also promise a political pushback against the bill outlawing collective bargaining rights for public employees, starting with an election April 5th, where they vow to replace a self-identified conservative judicial activist in favor of an independent on the state's supreme court. With these initial steps, progresssives are harking back to the salad days of Wisconsin Gov. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette and his nation-wide Progressive Party, with its alliance of labor and farmer movements, as they swing into action to mobilize an energized Democratic base.
Many analysts see the Walker bill as a long term boost for those who prefer not to balance the nation's deficits on the backs of working people. They see polls showing Americans in favor of collective bargaining rights, and in favor of teachers, as a sign that the bill may be an example of over-reaching on behalf of right wing ideology that will ultimately come back to haunt the Republicans in the next electoral cycle.

In Like a Lion

March swept in on clouds of winter storms and sub-zro weather. But winter seems to finally be loosening its grip. Here are some pix of late winter on the farm!

On another tack, some notes on the current turmoil re teacher's unions in Wisconsin. I loved Jon Stewart's sketches contrasting the treatment of corporate excess on outlets like Fox and the argument that state spending needs to be balanced by reining in teacher's salaries and benefits. The jester plays such an important role, speaking truth to power and reminding us of the foibles of the proud. Here is Stewart:

The Daily Show - Crisis in Dairyland - For Richer and Poorer - Teachers and Wall Street
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Where's the Revolution? Who are the Class Warriors?

Reading the news it's uncanny to see how the winds of change wash back up on these shores. We create a social network, and despots fall. Future historians will have a job trying to untangle the weave of influence that is washing across the Middle East. But let's say for argument's sake that the rise of Facebook, coinciding with the Obama presidency, has given a de facto impetus to democratic impulses across the globe in acknowledgement of the continuing power and sway of the American Revolution. It is ironic and somehow fitting that at the same time things are heating up back home, but in reverse, as lawmakers in Wisconsin of the capital D persuasion seek to forestall a democratically elected legislature from implementing reactionary policies that would curtail basic freedoms, some of the bulwarks of American democracy. I'm talking about the hard won rights to collective bargaining that took working men and women many years of struggle to gain, sometimes in the face of oppressive power that would make Gaddafi grimace in recognition. That's where we are in today's America, looking through a glass darkly as state legislatures try to dig out from the wreckage created by a financial corporate elite, nay oligarchy, by reneging on promises to humble teachers and public sector workers, and attempting to gut the remaining power of organized labor. As a public school teacher, I can tell you that the protection of a union, in ensuring all kinds of workplace equity, not just fair wages, is an essential if not the most crucial factor making this a tenable career.  Anybody who would believe that the people who negotiate with teacher's unions have a vested interest in caving in to union demands because they are elected officials, as David Brooks states in his most recent NY Times opinion piece, is not living in my world. On the contrary, teachers make handy scapegoats for all sorts of ills, and are left holding the bag because the rest of the working class has already been gutted.
Republicans like to point to the work of community organizers and union organizers and wave their finger and accuse them of inciting hatred and class warfare as if there were no such thing as class and therefore no reason for organizing beyond the evil attempts at world domination of Marx and Lenin. But with Scott Walker of Wisconsin, it couldn't be clearer that the power grab has already happened and we're just now waking up.